The global poverty line helps determine how billions of dollars in aid are allocated. But where did the idea of measuring poverty come from — and how might it be holding us back?

The story of how one independent researcher conducted the largest-ever survey on fetishes, and what it has to teach us about sex, pleasure, and social science methodology.

During the COVID pandemic, we learned to design vaccines within weeks. Now, the bottleneck is testing that they work. To get even faster, we need innovations in clinical trial design.

Matthew Desmond’s Poverty, by America is one of the most celebrated books on the subject. Unfortunately, carelessness about the ways we measure poverty undercuts its main argument.

In 2020, we worried that COVID lockdowns might lead to an increase in domestic violence. Instead, the opposite occurred. Why did this happen — and why was it so hard to figure out?

A conversation about religion, fertility, and the American family.

Everyone agrees that AIs are getting smarter — but it’s surprisingly difficult to measure by how much.

Colonoscopies are the first-line method for preventing colorectal cancer in America —and almost nowhere else. But do they work? We finally have a comprehensive trial, but it’s left gastroenterologists with more questions than answers.

The best way to predict if you’ll benefit from psychedelic therapy is a questionnaire asking if you’ve met God. Where did it come from, and what is it really measuring?

How an alliance between psychologists and advertisers at the turn of the 20th century taught us how to measure (and monetize) human attention.

Everyone seems to agree that self-report questions are fraught with lies, biases, errors, and other inaccuracies. We all use them anyway. How can we ask them better?

Across the world, more students than ever are in school. But it’s not clear that they're learning more while there — or if that’s even the goal.